With the public sector pensions dispute at a pivotal point, the first few weeks of 2012 will be critical in framing the future of widespread opposition to this government's cruel and unnecessary programme of austerity.

We have an opportunity to firmly reject the premise that public servants should pay more, work longer and get less, to pay for a recession caused by failing banks.

In doing this we would take a big step forward in opposing the guiding principle behind this Tory-led government's central policy: that those least culpable should pay the highest price for the mistakes of the financial and political elite.

The momentum we generated, particularly in the second half of the year, undoubtedly forced some minor concessions from ministers who quite obviously set out to suffocate the pensions talks with a belligerent refusal to talk about the key issues of concern for millions of public sector workers.

If they moved at all it was grudgingly and not very far. And it is worth remembering how chief secretary to the treasury Danny Alexander reported the signing of the so-called "heads of agreement" with some unions.

Cheered on by Tory backbenchers in the Commons, he crowed that the latest offer delivered "the government's key objectives in full", with "no new money" since the offer that brought 2 million people out on strike on 30 November.

He also confirmed that the new pensions would be "substantially more affordable to alternative providers". The desired outcome, this was the first remit given to John Hutton, who has shamefully allowed his Labour credentials to be used as cover for a thoroughly biased inquiry, fuelling the government's myth of inevitability about the need for further "reform" – when the uncontested analysis shows public sector pensions are affordable now and in the future.

In rejecting the offer, the Public and Commercial Services union is saying low and modestly paid people should not have to find an extra £50 a month or more to pay off the budget deficit; we are rejecting the attempt to force public servants to work to 68 – unnecessary and obscene in the sixth largest economy in the world; and we are rejecting the blatant unfairness of taking billions of pounds from people's pensions through the switch in inflation indexation from RPI to CPI.

We have not, as Alexander untruthfully claimed in parliament, "walked away from the talks". In fact, we are asking for proper negotiations with ministers to be reopened – on the central issues of contributions, pension age and indexation – but the government is attempting to exclude us from future discussions.

So as we head into 2012, we have to ask ourselves what is important, and what and who we stand for. Do we stand with the millionaires in the cabinet, who do not lead the same lives as the rest of us, who do not rely on the same public services that we do? Or do we stand for the people whose jobs, pensions and pay are being crushed to sustain a broken financial system.

We have the opportunity to fight and win on pensions, and in so doing we will embolden many more people for the inevitable battles in the year ahead.